According to Mooar’s Descendants of Isaac Cummings276, “2. JOHN CUMMINGS (Isaac1) married Sarah Howlett. She was a daughter of Serg’t Thos. and Alice (French) Howlet, who was a commoner, 3 Mar. 1634, Repr. 1635, granted a house lot in Woburn, 1635, purchased 40 acres there, 1637, serg’t 1643, ensign 1646, had one share and a half in Plum Island (Ipswich) 1666, and died, 1668 (78?) ae. 79. His wife, Alice, died June 26, 166- (6?), and he left a widow Rebekah, who died in Newbury, Nov. 1, 1680. Sarah had a brother William, at whose request, John Howlet, a nephew of Wm., deeded, May 20, 1715, 70 acres in Ipswich to her grandson, Joseph Cummings. John Cummings, (listed among the commoners, 1672) by his father’s will, 1677, was made sole executor and given the ‘house and lands, 40 acres more or less,’ from which were to be paid the legacies to other heirs. In 1661, he was taxed 10s. in Rowley Village (Boxford). Four hundred acres were laid off there to him and Thomas Dorman and Robert Stiles. This was bordered on the west by the Andover line. In 1678-9, he is spoken of as ‘a gatherer’ in Boxford of a rate ‘to procure powder and bullets.’ Both himself and wife were members of the Topsfield church and dismissed, but he ‘without recommendation,’ Dec. 6th 1685. But on the 16th of the same month he was one of several males mentioned as having entered into a covenant to form the church in Dunstable. He had become a proprietor, one of the first fourteen proprietors, of that new town, some three years before, Nov. 30, 1682. Jonathan Tyng deeded lands to him and to Isaac, John Jr., and Thomas Cummings at the same time, Jan. 29, 1683. He was a selectman in 1682, and for several years town clerk. He died Dec. 1, 1700, and his wife Dec. 7, following.

“Of his children, Nathaniel, Thomas, Sarah, William, El-[p. 6]iezer, Benjamin and Samuel are recorded in the Essex County records at Salem. The birthdays of the others are not known. As respects Isaac and Ebenezer, Fox’s Dunstable says: ‘These two were either killed by the Indians or drowned, as they died Nov. 2, 1688, and were not buried for many days after.’ Mr. Kimball Webster, of Hudson, N. H., quotes from Dunstable records as follows: ‘Isaac Cummings, son of John and Sarah, departed the 2 Nov., and was buried the 20th Nov. 1688.’” A list of John Cummings’ children follows.

Abbott Lowell Cummings277 has reported in detail on the possible connections between this John Cummings and his son Abraham, and the so-called “Woburn John” Cummings whose ancestry has not yet been established.